Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast
Transcript For: Jonathan Akeley, Manager China.
August 29, 2008
Jonathan Akeley discusses developments in the Fulbright Program to China.
Tony: Alright, welcome to the
Fulbright US Student Applicant Podcast. I’m Tony Claudino, your co-host, with
Schuyler: Schuyler Allen. And today we’re joined
by Jonathan Akeley who is
Tony: the expert in China. And that’s the focus for
today.
Jonathan: That it is.
Tony: We’re just going to focus on China.
So, Jonathan.
Jonathan: Well, China has been on of the fastest
growing countries in the US Student program in recent years. Actually the US
Student Program only started its traditional program in China about a decade ago, so it’s a
very young program but it’s now, I think, the second largest program in terms
of research grants in the US Student Program.
Schuyler: And how many grants are on offer?
Jonathan: About 60 – 70 a year.
Schuyler: Wow, that’s huge.
Jonathan: Yes, it is a large program. And
Fulbrighters, or applicants to China,
are also lucky in that they can apply for the Critical Language Enhancement
Awards to improve their Mandarin language skills when they apply.
Schuyler: Wow, there’s a whole lot of
information just in that right there, so I’m going to break it down. What…
what… I know this is sort of a huge and general question but what are the
screening committees and the Department of State and the Embassy in Beijing looking for in an applicant to China?
Jonathan: One thing that’s been really important
to the program is to have more diversity in terms of where people are going to
be basing their projects in China.
One of the trends we’ve seen is that people tend to want to cluster at the
universities in Beijing and Shanghai,
which is kind of analogous to foreign students who come to the United States and maybe want to cluster in New York, LA, San Francisco, places like
that. But China, of course,
is a very large country and we want people to get out of Beijing
and Shanghai.
So we actually have a preference for applications that will be based in other
cities. And on out website, we actually break this down in our affiliation
guide. That’s one important thing.
Another important issue
with China
is just feasibility which is something that is true in any country, but it’s
just things that people propose to do have to be things that they can actually
do in 10 months. One of the biggest problems I think we see in applications is
they are hopelessly general and you know people say things like they want to
study globalization’s effect on China. You know, it’s too squishy. It’s really
important when designing a project to be very specific, to demonstrate a
knowledge of the country you’re applying to.
Schuyler: I just want to add a little footnote
to what Jonathan’s saying because I just conducted a podcast with a grantee in China today and she said that one of her
experiences while she’s been in Beijing
has been the need for specificity in her questions to any librarians or
professors. So I think that specificity is something that is useful all the way
through the application process to even when you’re on the ground doing the
grant. So, that’s excellent advice Jonathan.
Tony: What are some fields of study
that you’re seeing? What are some fields of study that China would like to have more of?
Jonathan: Well, you know, again traditionally we
have a lot of people especially at the PhD level in Chinese history,
traditionally a large field for us, political science to a lesser extent.
Public health is a big field in China.
I think the Embassy is really interested in seeing more applications in the
humanities. We do not have many applicants who are researching Chinese
literature, We do not have a lot of applicants in the arts. And I think they do
want to see more, on both sides of the program, the US and the visiting side of the
Fulbright Program. They want more people in these fields.
Tony: Are there any, I’m thinking for
example in the field of communications or journalism, obviously the Olympics
are happening this summer, are those certain
fields they should st— what is your advice for someone that might be
Schuyler: be careful with.
Tony: Yeah, exactly.
Jonathan: I mean, China
is… it can be tricky dealing with certain topics in China, there are certain
sensitivities. I mean in general, if somebody approaches a topic tactfully it
should be able to be researched, it’s just having a level of cultural
sensitivity is very important. And there are obviously certain topics, dealing
with Tibet or other minority
populations that just aren’t going to be feasible for a young, American
independent researcher to be proposing to do in China.
Tony: OK. Can they also study at the
university, or do they really need to have a research project in China?
Jonathan: All of the Fulbrighters going to China
have to affiliate with Chinese universities. That’s a requirement. And
graduating seniors are all required to audit classes as well.
Tony: And what type of classes have
Fulbrighters taken in the past? Or…
Jonathan: It completely depends on their
projects. I mean, somebody in economics is going to be taking classes that are
completely different from somebody studying archeology or something like that.
So it really just depends on the project, and the courses being offered at
their host institution.
Tony: Excellent. So we should now go
on to talk about language.
Schuyler: language because again, sort of
similar to the previous podcast that we just did on language acquisition and
Chinese is clearly not a language you can learn in three weeks, and there are
different kinds of Chinese, mandarin, etc, so there’s these different kinds of
Chinese. How would you recommend, or what would you recommend as far as somebody
doing a research grant- to begin to learn Chinese and you did mention the
Critical Language Enhancement Award, which we’ll be doing a separate podcast on
fairly soon for people who are interested in applying for one, but clearly
Chinese is a tough language to learn. So what recommendations would you give to
people who want to take a research grant and need to learn Chinese in order to
do that.
Jonathan: Study, study, study. I mean, it’s a
basic application requirement, people need to have at least 2 to 3 years of
college level Chinese.
Schuyler: Does it matter what kind of Chinese?
Jonathan: Mandarin Chinese.
Schuyler: Mandarin, ok.
Jonathan: Which in the United States is
Schuyler: standard.
Jonathan: There are very few schools in the US
that teach Cantonese. So when people have studied in the classroom it usually
is Mandarin. If it works with their timing of their grant, we do encourage
people to apply for the Critical Language Enhancement Award because having that
intensive focus on the language for a few months before they actually start
their project is really beneficial, because having the language skills when
you’re on the ground there is really important because you have to be able to
negotiate everything in your life in this language, and you know, even if
you’ve studied it in a US classroom for 4 years or whatever, it’s different
from having to negotiate with your landlord or figuring out how to register
with the police, doing all these things in daily life which can get tough and
stressful if you don’t have the vocabulary or the comfort in the language to be
able to do it, much less the specialized vocabulary you need to really
understand the discourse in your field, whether it’s public health, economics, or
history or what have you.
Tony: Now if I’m a junior, let’s say I
have a year of Chinese under my belt and I want to apply for Fulbright to go to
China, I know that there’s the Critical Language Enhancement award, but can
they also do summer, do they write in the application, let’s say they’re shy of
the language requirement, can they write
in their application that they’re going to study Chinese over their summer at
Middlebury or Monterrey or some other school. Does that help or hinder or-
Jonathan: Intensive yea, the intensive language
boot camps can be very good in terms of bolstering people’s skills. And again,
we, as a general rule, we encourage as much language knowledge as possible, so
if people have the means and the time to do it it’s definitely recommended.
Tony: OK, so someone with less of a
knowledge of the language can still apply for Fulbright as long as they can
show that the bootcamp is going to work out.
Jonathan: When they apply, by the time a
candidate for the Fulbright grant applies, they will have had to have had 2
years or the equivalent or they’re just not going to be competitive to a
popular grant.
Tony: Great. Any other items you want
to talk about related to China?
In this special China
podcast that we’re doing?
Jonathan: Special China podcast… Just re-emphasizing
that we want people to go out of Beijing and Shanghai. There are a lot
of great places to study and to immerse yourselves in China and we want people to think
beyond just those two big mega-cities that everyone else, that people are
already thinking of.
Tony: Where have some Fulbrighters, in
past experiences, what cities have Fulbrighters been in besides Beijing and Shanghai,
to give our audience some ideas?
Jonathan: People have been all over. One of the
places where I was surprised that we don’t get more applicants to is the city
of Xian which was the ancient capital, it’s
where the terracotta warriors are, the last walled city in China. It’s historically a very
important city in China
and very few Fulbrighters base their projects there. That would be one of
probably the biggest surprises. You know, there are a lot of other cities in China where we’ll have Fubrighters go, whether
it be Wuhan, which is kind of in the middle of China, Harbin
which is way up in the North of China. We have people go all over the place.
But it’s just in terms of the overall numbers, it’s a very small proportion to
the rest of the group.
Tony: Great.
Schuyler: Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for
sharing this useful information. And if anyone wants to contact you about China
I presume they can find that contact information on our website.
Jonathan: Yes, it’s all on the website.
Schuyler: Terrific.
Tony: Great. Thank you Jonathan.
Jonathan: My pleasure.
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